


Unraveled

by Sweetie_T



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Emotional, Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Knitting, Major Character Death Mentioned, Pregnancy and Birth, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 04:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12050928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetie_T/pseuds/Sweetie_T
Summary: Ben's blood ran cold with shock as he cradled the remains. His wife was trembling, crying again but he couldn't even look at her. He tried to push the pieces back together, but what was done could not be undone.His blanket was ruined.





	Unraveled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainhookcaptainfreedom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhookcaptainfreedom/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [captainhookcaptainfreedom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhookcaptainfreedom/pseuds/captainhookcaptainfreedom) in the [Crafts_SPACE_prompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Crafts_SPACE_prompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Someone makes/made a baby blanket for the Organa/Solo child, Ben Solo. (It could be Leia because she's a loving mother, or someone as a "grandmother" figure, or it could be Chewbacca because that actually seems wonderful and hilarious and I could just hear his upset wail over dropping a stitch when knitting it)  
> It could involve knitting, sewing, quilting, crocheting, however it is that you make a baby blanket!  
> Could happen pre or post baby birth. 
> 
> Bonus: The blanket could also end up being a "security blanket" for Ben when he's young. Maybe it makes Ben want to learn how to make a blanket like it? Maybe something happens to it so he needs to mend it or make a new one?
> 
> A/N-  
> My first ever prompt fic! I hope it's what you were looking for.
> 
> -Sweetie

Ben's blood ran cold with shock as he cradled the remains. His wife was trembling, crying again but he couldn't even look at her. He tried to push the pieces back together, but what was done could not be undone. His blanket was ruined.

He turned and walked out of their house, the tangle of yarn held tightly in his hands. He could not stay. He could feel his emotions clamoring to be admitted entrance. If he had stayed he would have raised his voice to her. Something he had never done, and could not in good conscience fathom doing now, her so newly with child.

He walked until he could no longer see their house. He held himself together until that moment, but no longer. He allowed the emotions inside. Grief, sorrow, regret, guilt, anger. All of his old friends were there. He buried his face in his unraveled childhood and tried desperately to remember when he had been innocent.

He recalled the stories from his youth. His mother and father had told and retold them countless times until he could recite them without effort. His mother was carrying him, not far along, and Chewbacca had taken it upon himself to procure the soft brown yarn and a pair of knitting needles. His father would pilot them here and there and when things were calm the wookie would knit for hours on end.

From the tales he knew knitting did not come easy to his "hairy godfather". The fur of his fingers would sometimes become tangled in the stitches and he would scream his frustration, his cries echoing around the Falcon as he was forced to unravel a bit of his work and try to regain his place in the pattern.

Chewie finished the blanket the day Ben was born. He sat and waited while Leia labored, frantically pouring his anxiety into each stitch. The last of it, it is said, was fastened in place the moment Ben had released his very first cry. The blanket was the first cloth to touch his skin. He slept with it every night of his life, even when consumed by the darkness. It was the single shred of his true self he had never let go.

And his poor wife had only meant to launder it. And it had unraveled in the wash. And now it was gone.

But... Was it gone? Was it really? It was no longer intact, but he held the entirety of the elements in his hands. Nothing was missing, it was all here. All it needed was a bit of effort on his part to make it whole again.

He returned to his house, his unpleasant emotions ousted to make room for this new fierce determination. He went to his wife and embraced her, whispering words of comfort against her hair, holding her until her weeping subsided.

As soon as he was certain she was calm and content he packed the yarn in a satchel, donned his cloak and took off on foot, headed to the nearest trading post for a pair of knitting needles.

 

Ben had mastered a legion of various weapons. He was skilled with a toy saber before he could talk. He was dexterous, accurate, strong and unyielding. His skill was such that countless opponents had fallen at his hand. He had practiced for hundreds of hours the art of fighting with double sided sabers, triple blades, two sabers at once.

But knitting needles were proving to be his match. He had taken them up with confidence at first. How hard could it be? With his myriad of skills and abilities, he surely had the capacity to put knots in yarn. He figured with his innate talents he would have a completed blanket within the week.

He was chagrined to find he was easily humbled by two sticks and some string. All he managed to create was a large jumbled mess that took him infinitely longer to straighten out than it had taken him to create.

He was at a complete loss, and he spent about half a day sulking, considering giving up entirely until he suddenly recalled his first time using a double blade.

He had believed that would be easy for him too. After all, he had mastered a single blade quite readily. He took it up with a falsely inflated sense of confidence, and ended up with several new scars and... a trainer. 

He needed a trainer.

 

If his godfather had still been alive, Ben was certain he could have learned from him. Ben had earned his forgiveness ages ago, when he had finally rejected the darkness inside. Chewbacca had actually been the one to stay with him, to lend him strength, and to help him survive the pain of regaining his conscience, embracing the light while retaining excruciatingly vivid memories of the things he had done under influence of the dark.

But Chewbacca had been gone for years. So he had no choice. He had to call on his mother.

She saw him immediately, always eager for his company. He was generally... less eager. Whenever in her presence he was unfailingly filled with a profound sense of inadequacy. This had been the case since he was a boy. She was strong, capable, brave. Everything came to her with such apparent ease. How could she expect any less from her son?

She saw him in her sitting room and called for tea to be served. They sat across from one another on twin sofas, the cushions hard and uncomfortable.

"What a nice surprise, Ben. Our visits really are far too infrequent." She smiled kindly at him and sipped her tea.

He stared into his teacup, gathering his nerve. He took a sip and set the cup and saucer on the table between them. "I need a favor, Mother." He said in his baritone voice.

"Of course, Ben. Anything I can do for you. You know that."

He looked up at her. "I would like to learn to knit."

The slight crinkle of her brow was the only indication she found anything peculiar about his statement. "Why?" She asked, baffled.

He took out his satchel and showed her the unraveled yarn.

She gasped. "Is that... wookie?"

He tried very hard not to blush in shame. "Mother, I have not called it that since I was five years old, but, yes. It is my blanket."

He explained to her that his wife had tried to wash it and she had done so with such vigor it had entirely unraveled. He told her of his plans to remake it.

"Oh, I'll do it for you." She waved him off.

He took a moment to collect his thoughts, sighing forcefully through his prominent nose. "No, thank you, Mother. This is something I would like to attempt myself."

She studied him for a long moment. She was his mother and despite their previous estrangement there were still times she knew him as well as he knew himself. And she realized this was something he needed. It would prove to be a valuable endeavor, she was certain. She nodded, called for her schedule to be cleared for the day, and she spent several pleasant hours with her son, teaching him to knit.

 

He snarled with frustration. He had left his mother's house confident once again and, once again, he found himself learning about the virtue of humility from yarn and needles. She had made it look so easy, the yarn slipping through her fingers, the needles clicking.

His fingers had always been nimble enough for however he chose to employ them, but suddenly they were clumsy and uncoordinated. It seemed there was always one too many things to be holding, gripping, moving. He unraveled his latest attempt and hung his head in his hands.

A thought entered his mind unbidden. Ben holding his newborn child, the tiny, delicate creature completely helpless, entrusted into his useless, bumbling grip. He thrust the image from his head and envisioned his mother's hands instead. The yarn wrapped around her fingers, the needles held gently, the movements slight and precise.

He took a deep breath, and tried again.

 

Two weeks later he had finally started knitting the blanket in earnest. His first few hundred attempts he had undone and started over, remaining unsatisfied until his wife had finally pointed out that if he continued to work the same length of yarn he would eventually wear it to nothing.

He tried a few more times and at last found a rhythm and tension that pleased him. He had been working every spare moment since. It frustrated him how slowly the progress seemed to be. He would work for an entire evening and barely be able to discern any difference at all from when he began earlier that day.

A few times he considered giving up. He thought of taking the yarn to his mother and asking her to finish it for him. But after a few hours respite he found his fingers itching for the work.

It surprised him how deeply the repetitive motion allowed him to delve into his own psyche. With his hands occupied and his brain idle he found himself pondering questions that had never occurred to him before. How did others see him? How did he see himself? What kind of man was he? Son? Husband? What kind of father would he be?

And instead of these questions causing him anxiety, as he would have expected, the yarn and the needles and the act of knitting kept him grounded. He discovered a nearly unending capacity to acknowledge and accept his strengths and weaknesses, his quirks and characteristics, as long as he kept the needles moving. It was crafting, but it was, at the same moment, a profound act of meditation.

 

A few months passed and his wife commented on the blanket. She was surprised the pattern of knits, purls, skips and doubles were turning out so beautifully. She was in awe of the fact that he had started with a pile of yarn and using only simple tools and his own fingers he was creating an item of such loveliness. He hadn't thought of it in quite that way before, but he realized she was right. He was making something whole from tatters. It unexpectedly filled him with comfort, pride and confidence.

 

As his wife neared the end of her pregnancy his mother came to stay with them in anticipation of the birth. They would sit in the parlor in the evenings. His wife would rest against him and his mother would watch him work.

One night she knelt before him and placed her hands over his, stilling his movements. He looked up and found himself gazing into her misty eyes.

"I am so proud of you, Ben."

Her words were unexpected and he found he could only blink at her.

"You have been working so hard, and I know it was not easy for you. If you are anything like me it took you ages to get the movements right. You've shown such patience, such perseverance." She smiled softly at his long fingers, watching them tenderly stroking the blanket as he'd done since infancy.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You've come so far... And you are going to be a wonderful father." She kissed his temple and made her way up to bed.

When he returned his gaze to his work, he found his vision blurred by tears.

 

He paced like a caged lion, the primal groans and gasps drifting from his room making him insane. His wife, mother and the midwife were in his bedroom. His wife was bringing his child into the world. And she had kicked him out because he was making her nervous.

Which he supposed he understood. He had never been so anxious, and the sensation was so extreme he was unable to conceal his mental state. So now here he was, pacing endlessly, going out of his mind with nerves.

On his next pass through the parlor he spotted his knitting, tempting him from the sofa where it lay forgotten, tossed aside the moment it was made clear that the birth was imminent. He gave in to the urge and grabbed his work, sitting down and knitting furiously. Gradually his stitches became calmer, and his nerves eased to a manageable level.

Every sound his wife made still sent a jolt through his heart, but the motion of his fingers helped him cope. Eventually he entered the meditative state knitting often afforded him. He realized he was anxious about not only the outcome of the birth, but also about becoming a father. What could he give his child? Volatile emotions and a propensity for succumbing to darkness. Wonderful.

Before he was fully prepared he was stunned to realize he had just finished his last stitch, and at the same instant he heard a little but fierce cry. His child had just been born.

His mother came out of the room and beamed at him. "It's a girl." She gestured for him to come and meet his daughter. He dropped the needles, forgotten, and clutched his remade blanket tightly as he quietly entered his bedroom.

His wife was holding their newborn and the midwife was moving to cover her with a quilt. He put his hand on her arm to still her and used the blanket he had just finished instead, draping his tiny daughter in the soft cloth he had made with his own hands.

His wife proudly lifted the baby to him, and he took her carefully, cradling her close to his beating heart and staring in wonder at her wide open eyes. It was that moment he knew he was a father. And he vowed to be a wonderful one. Patient, gentle, persistent. He may fumble at first but he knew he would never give up.

The infant curled her whole fist around one of his fingertips. He smiled lovingly at her, and whispered, "I'm your daddy. I made this wookie just for you. It is yours and I am yours. For always."

And he could have sworn she smiled back at him.


End file.
